Forgotten and remembered
by Frosty the Glaceon
Summary: Link woke up in a cave filled with blue light, and thought to himself: "Where the hell am I?" BotW novelisation focused on Link's thoughts during the main story. Will continue after the Ganon battle.
1. Chapter 1

_Link. Link. Wake up, Link._

The water drained away, and Link felt the cold air against his chest.

He opened his eyes. Blue light shone into them. As his blurry vision got clearer, he looked at his surroundings. He was in a cave, inside … well, something with water at the bottom.

He stepped out of the weird contraption, onto the surprisingly warm floor. A blue pedestal stood next to two massive doors. When he went to inspect the pedestal, a female voice told him: " _This is the Sheikah Slate. Take it, it will guide you on your journey."_

He decided that for now, it was best to listen, as he hadn't a clue of what all of this was.

Upon taking the Sheikah slate, the doors opened. The next room contained a few chests and crates. Though he assumed the chests would be locked, he grabbed a rock from the floor and tried to open one.

To his surprise, it opened easily. All it contained was a pair of pants.

He was confused. Who on earth would put a worn pair of pants like these in a chest? Surely there must be more valuable things to store.

The other chest contained an old shirt. He put the clothes on and they felt weirdly familiar. They wouldn't protect him from anything, but it was something.

At the other side of the room, there was a ledge slightly taller than him. Using a few rocks protruding from the ledge, he clambered over the side without a problem.

Then he caught a glimpse of light – not the artificial blue light from the cave, but rather sunlight, yellow and warm.

He ran outside, to the edge of the cliff, and looked upon the world. It was a magnificent sight, with a volcano and a castle in the distance. A strange sense of familiarity came over him, the same as when he put the old clothes on.

It also felt a bit melancholic, but he did not know why. In fact, he remembered nothing at all… yet somehow, he had remembered words like "volcano" and "cave". How had this all happened?

Under a little outcrop not too far away, he saw an old man sitting by a fire. _Great, maybe he'll be able to give me some answers._

On the way to the fire, he almost tripped over a rather sturdy-looking stick. It seemed a bit silly, but he decided to take the stick with him for self-defense. He had this feeling that the old man wasn't the only creature he'd be meeting around here.

Only upon seeing the baked apple resting by the fire did he realize how hungry he was. He grabbed it and took a bite before the old man yelled: "Hey! That is my apple, you know!"

Link suddenly realized that he was being very rude and was about to apologize when the man said: "Hahaha! I am only joking, of course! I'm sure you must be very hungry, you can have the apple."

Link gave a quick nod as thanks and continued eating. It was gone in a matter of seconds.

"It is not often that travelers come here", the old man said. "Why are you here?"

"I don't know", Link answered.

"Searching for a reason to travel? I see. I used to be an adventurer as well. These old bones won't allow me to climb anymore, so instead I use this paraglider to get around", the strange man said.

Link didn't know if he was joking; the paraglider, though finely crafted, seemed far too small to keep a human in the air.

"Well, I hope you find your purpose. Goodbye."

And with that, the mysterious man disappeared in a puff of smoke. How had he vanished so suddenly? Was he even human?

The voice from back in the cave interrupted his thoughts. _Follow the marker on the Slate_ , she said. _You will be led to the tower._

He followed the marker, but there was no tower – only a pedestal, the same one as before.

There was no Sheikah Slate in this one, though, so he guessed that he had to insert his own Slate.

 _Downloading map information,_ said a decidedly less human voice. _Watch out for falling rocks._

The ground started shaking and was moving … down? No, that couldn't be right. He was moving up, and at an alarming speed. As he looked around, he saw towers rising out of the ground on all sides and assumed that was what was happening beneath his feet right now.

Thunk. The tower suddenly stopped growing, and Link was thrown into the air. After regaining his footing, he looked around and could see so much more than from the edge of the cliff. It looked even more gorgeous now, but it also looked empty. The only man-made structure he could see was the castle, which was surrounded by some sort of purple goo. The rest was seemingly untouched by humans.

His eyes gravitated back to the castle, and he heard the voice again, the female one. _Save me, Link. Save Hyrule._ She was undoubtedly calling to him from within the castle. Link felt a strong urge to save her and this Hyrule, whatever it was.

"Lost in thoughts?" He recognized the old man's voice behind him. Sure enough, there he was, paragliding down from the snowy mountains. How had he even gotten up there if he couldn't climb? There was something fishy going on here, but at least the old man was no immediate threat. Besides, he had something more important to ask.

"What do I need to give you to get that paraglider? I need to get to the castle."

"Wow, straight to the point", the old man said. "Well, you see that blue thing over there? It just rose up from the ground, and I'm betting there's some good treasure down there. Go check it out for me, and then you get the glider."

Link nodded and slowly made his way down the tower.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note: I don't remember a lot of the specifics, so certain things might differ from the game.**

It was a long and rather perilous climb back down the stairs. Link started to make his way over to the shrine, but there appeared to be an obstacle – a camp full of orange creatures with pig snouts and small horns on their heads.. They held clubs in their … hands? Claws?

The camp consisted of a guard tower, a bonfire, and a skull-shaped rock (had they carved it out themselves, or were natural skull-shaped rocks common here? Link couldn't decide which was scarier).

He was initially going to steer away from them, but he felt like he could take them on – almost as if he had experience fighting them – and there was also a very tempting treasure chest that radiated off a purple glow.

He snuck behind the back of the creature standing on the ground outside and struck it on the head with his stick. It fell onto the ground and disappeared with a puff of smoke, leaving only the spoils of war: its club and shield.

After gathering these, he threw his old stick away: the club would be a nice replacement and wouldn't be breaking any time soon. He hoped to find a ranged weapon, though, perhaps a bow?

Sneaking further, he made sure not to be seen or heard by the monster on top of the guard tower. It had a large white cone, meant to alert the others for intruders, in one hand – a horn of a larger creature, perhaps – and a simple wooden bow in the other. These creatures had some intelligence, but they were not sophisticated toolmakers by any stretch.

There was no cover he could use to sneak to the guard tower, but his other option, the rock, was probably full of enemies just waiting to club him to death. He would have to kill the guard first – but how?

He would have to distract it. He looked around for anything he could use – aha! Those creatures had to have a great sense of smell with their huge snouts, right? He grabbed a berry, threw it, and it landed right where he wanted it to – at the bottom of the guard tower's ladder. The hideous creature sniffed around and, once it picked up the scent, started climbing down the ladder.

Link made a run for it. The monster, having decided that it was just a berry, looked around to see where it had come from – but all he saw was a large piece of wood rapidly approaching him.

Having gathered the bow and a few arrows on top of the tower, Link climbed back down and wisely avoided the monster's guts which had, for some reason, not disappeared with the rest of its organs. He then started thinking of a plan of attack for the skull rock. How was he going to defeat all of those monsters to get to the chest? He wondered why he had felt like he could take them on – even if he had defeated two, the monsters within the rock probably outnumbered him by far.

Then he realized that he should stop assuming everything and just go check out what was inside the rock. He climbed up to the left eye and took a careful peek, expecting to see an army.

There were … three? And they were asleep? Lazy buggers, sleeping in the middle of the day. This just got a whole lot easier.

Careful not to wake anyone, he nocked an arrow and slowly pulled back the bowstring. He held his breath, aimed, and… twang! Missed! Flint arrowhead scraped against stone floor, releasing a few sparks before coming to a stop. To him, it was an unbearably loud sound, but all of the monsters slept right through it.

Phew, that was close. He nocked another arrow, and then he noticed that this was the second last one left. He wouldn't have enough to kill all the monsters, and if he missed another one, he would have to fight two of them on his own. He needed another plan.

All he saw was the chest and a few red barrels. Red – the color of danger. They also had skulls painted on them, so maybe they contained a dangerous substance such as a poison or explosive. If so, fire would surely wreak havoc and if not, the fire couldn't hurt him anyway. It was a wild guess, but Link just had a feeling that it would pay off. A burning oil lamp hung (conveniently) from the ceiling. A nice clean shot at the rope would make the lamp smash onto the ground, causing oil to spread everywhere – hopefully including the barrels.

He pulled back arrow two, aimed and fired. The arrow hit the wall and fell straight down, onto the face of one of the monsters. It woke up and looked around, confused. Link realized that he didn't have the time to fire another arrow and, in a desperate attempt, threw his shield straight at the lamp. The glass broke and the hot oil splattered everywhere. There were trails of fire running in all directions, including towards the barrel at the entrance.

BOOM! Link was thrown off the rock by the sheer force of the explosion. Two more explosions followed shortly after, and then… silence. After scrambling to his feet, he went in and grabbed a traveler's sword from the fire. It wasn't the sturdiest, but certainly better to fight with than a club.

The stone chest still stood, unscathed. It now emitted a yellow glow instead of a purple one – perhaps it had been trapped. He poked it with his sword, but nothing happened. He figured it was safe and opened it. Inside – a few arrows and an apple. A measly reward for defeating a camp of, well, whatever these were called, but he _did_ need arrows.

Link was now sufficiently equipped for the upcoming, well, shrine was the best name for it.

He was ready.


End file.
